On C,XOXO, Camila Cabello Finds Love for Her Hometown (2024)

It's 7 a.m. in Los Angeles, where Camila Cabello is promoting her soon-to-be-released fourth album, C,XOXO. She's commiserating with me about not being a morning person, telling me she only gets up early to speak to the press like she's doing now when her team requires it.

Naturally, Cabello is pressed for time these days, thanks to the new record. She's been hosting listening parties, appearing on talk shows, and even attending the Met Gala, where she stood out, thanks to a block of ice with a rose suspended in the middle of it that she held like a clutch, completely overshadowing her customLudovic de Saint Sernin gown.

Stans on X (formerly known as Twitter) are also keeping Cabello in the headlines, thanks to the debate surrounding C,XOXO's lead single, "I Luv It." It's a glitchy, hyperpop-leaning track that, upon first listen, feels like a dramatic departure from the 27-year-old's traditional pop sound.

But in speaking with Cabello, I come to her defense and tell her it feels like she's doing what every twentysomething eventually has to do: mature.

"Honestly, I agree with you," she tells me. "It definitely feels that way on the inside. It felt like a really natural evolution. It didn't feel like, 'I'm going to change everything!'" she adds, lowering her voice. "It felt more like following curiosities and microdecisions to kind of get to the moment."

It seems like everyone has forgotten that Cabello first stepped into the limelight in 2012 at the tender age of 15 as a contestant on The X Factor, where she wowed judges with her rendition of Aretha Franklin's "Respect." During the show's "boot camp" phase, judge and show producer Simon Cowell had the idea of lumping Cabello with four other young women —Ally Brooke, Normani Kordei, Dinah Jane, and Lauren Jauregui — to form a girl group that would compete on the show.

The group placed third on the show, and Fifth Harmony was born.

As part of the group, Cabello helped make songs like "Work From Home" and "Worth It," smash hits the world over before departing somewhat controversially from the group in 2016 to pursue a solo career.

On her own, she already has three albums under her belt, with her fourth, C,XOXO, set for release on June 28.

She's experienced a lot of success for someone who admits she never studied music. In fact, her appearance on The X Factor happened because she begged her parents to let her audition if she chose to forgo having a quinceañera.

The idea first popped into her head as a freshman at Miami Palmetto Senior High School. "I was such a fan of pop culture. I loved Justin Bieber, and I loved the Jonas Brothers, and then I loved One Direction — that was probably my biggest fangirl phase," she recalls. "I had a group ofgirls in social studies class, and we were obsessed with One Direction, and I remember they had this video where they were giving tips on how to audition for The X Factor."

Cabello says she instantly felt like the show was her calling. Having spent most of her childhood in suburban Miami-Dade singing into her bedroom karaoke machine, she felt this could be her big break.

Her Cuban immigrant parents seemed befuddled by their daughter's request but obliged, with Cabello admitting to New Times that they probably saw it as a phase, thinking she wouldn't get very far on the show and would return to her studies to be the doctor they'd hope she'd be.

"The journey I took those poor people on," she says in retrospect.

So where does C,XOXO slot into Cabello's journey so far? If her 2018 debut, Camila, and its follow-up, 2019's Romance, are a young woman's experience finding herself far from home and 2022's Familia is an ode to her Cuban roots, then C,XOXO is a homecoming from her sojourn abroad older, wiser, and ready to explore a city that her teenage self swore she'd never return to.

Working mainly with producers El Guincho (Rosalía, FKA Twigs, Björk)and Jasper Harris (Tate McRae, Jack Harlow, Post Malone), Cabello sounds more confident in herself and her sound than ever before. While C,XOXO's lead single, "I Luv It," feels like a shift from Cabello's sound thus far, sonically, the album is more akin to the second single, the Lil Nas X collaboration "He Knows." It also takes cues from hip-hop, complete with interludes and features by the likes of Playboi Carti, Drake, and the City Girls' JT and Yung Miami.

"What I got the most from this experience were confidence and the ability to feel like I can do anything now." tweet this

"I think it's the only way that I'll ever do it from now on," Cabello says of working with a small group of producers, something she also did on Familia. "I can only speak for myself, but I just feel like my philosophy is you can't really create by committee because it gets diluted, and it ends up being a group project as opposed to your thoughts and voice."

For Cabello, the results speak for themselves. "It pushes me to be a better writer because I bear the responsibilities of coming up with ideas and getting better. I like that responsibility because I like the challenge, and I like growing."

She admits to feeling apprehensive while recording C,XOXO, but says she surprised herself with what she made in the end.

"I always felt like a strong writer in my emotional songs, kind of midtempo," she shares. "Being able to write songs like 'I Luv It,' 'Dade County Dreaming,' or 'Chanel No. 5,' I was surprised by just how much I grew as a songwriter. I feel like what I got the most from this experience were confidence and the ability to feel like I can do anything now.I don't think I felt like that before this album, but now I truly feel like I can really write anything if I put the work in."

In May, Cabello released the album's trailer, a sort of Harmony Korine-esque ode to Miami. That's not just because the pop star calls the Magic City home. C,XOXO oozes a 305-til-I-die attitude — in fact, that's the name of one of the tracks.

With El Guincho also calling Miami home, this project allowed Cabello to record in her hometown.

"Getting to be home for the past year and getting to explore new restaurants in the city and getting to hang out with my friends and go to Life Time and to Pura Vida in the morning and hang out with my friends — it just made me fall in love with my Miami even more," she says. "I've always had a 'who' and a 'what' and even a 'when,' but I've never had a 'where' in an album. Miami is such a big part of who I am as a person and as an artist."

"Getting to be home for the past year, it just made me fall in love with my Miami even more." tweet this

That's ultimately what C,XOXO is about: Cabello returning home to Miami and learning to appreciate all the city has given her. It's a sharp contrast to the teenage girl who so desperately wanted out of suburban mundanity that she pushed her parents to let her audition for a reality-TV competition show.

"When I first left, one of the reasons I wanted to make it into X Factorso bad was I was just so bored in high school. I remember being in class, looking at the clock, being like, When is this going to end?" she says. "I was so excited to leave home that I really didn't see the magic in our home city at all."

After spending so many years away from South Florida, be it working in New York City or Los Angeles or touring across the globe, Cabello says she's learned to appreciate the little things Miami has to offer.

"Miami is where it's at, like just the warmth of the people and calling you 'Hi, mi amor!' while getting you a cafecito and, growing up, guava paselitos being sold for a dollar at my school. And the music and the combination of cultures — the immigrant culture — and the Miami English and the heat. I was just like, There's no place like it."

It's hard to disagree.